Malicious Is Done With Milwaukee, Mostly

Rapper T.R.E. of the Milwaukee group Malicious
stresses that people can interpret the cover image of his group’s new album For Whatever It’s Worth however they’d
like, though when pressed if there’s any way to interpret it aside from the
obvious one, he laughs and admits, “I suppose there isn’t.” The cover shows the
inside of a car driving down the highway, while in its rearview mirror the Milwaukee skyline is
engulfed by flames. It’s not exactly an ambiguous image, especially coming from
a group that has never been shy about voicing its criticism of the Milwaukee hip-hop scene.

“To be honest, we feel
like we’ve given our all to the city, and we feel like it’s time to do
something for ourselves, which means doing things outside the city,” T.R.E.
says. “We’re not moving from Milwaukee,
though, and we’re not breaking up, even if you might hear we are. So we’re not
going to be total strangers. Will we ever do another album, though? Who knows.”

Malicious has long felt
disconnected from Milwaukee’s
hip-hop scene. The group—which T.R.E. began as a teenager in the mid-’90s and
in its current incarnation includes fellow lyricist Kimma, producer Kid
Krossova and DJ Ya Boi Pep—has seen the rap scene grow extensively, though not
always to its benefit, T.R.E. says.

“Originally, there were
just a few of us, and we would all get together, then branch off and rotate
between shows to keep everything sustainable,” T.R.E. says. “It’s not like that
anymore. Now you see the same people play three, four, even five nights a week.
It’s oversaturation; the city can’t support that many shows.”

On the surface,
Malicious seems in sync with Milwaukee’s hip-hop
scene, with which it shares an obvious admiration for ’90s rap—the influence of
Camp Lo, Brand Nubian and Gang Starr runs
thick through For Whatever It’s Worth.
But T.R.E. and Kimma aren’t strict traditionalists, by any means. They also
touch on current sounds that can seem taboo in a scene that sometimes worships
classic hip-hop to the exclusion of modern music.

“On this album we’ve got
a lot of different moods: easy-listening stuff, dance stuff; you’ve got your
deep-thought songs, your wild-out, crazy hip-hop songs, and even a couple
R&B joints on there with the singer Elle Razberry,” T.R.E. says. “I think
some people can look at that as being commercial, but I don’t think it sounds
overly commercial. This is just the type of music we like to do. We don’t want
to stay in just one box and say, ‘This is the only kind of music we’re going to
make.’ As hip-hop has grown, we’ve grown with it.”

That philosophy puts
Malicious at odds with some of the hip-hop scene. As fans of independent and
underground rap age, they often reach a point where they feel that modern rap
music has left them behind or lost its ideals, or simply is no longer as good
as it once was. T.R.E. never hit that wall.

“I feel that hip-hop has
evolved in so many ways, and not everybody is going to like all of them, but I
don’t understand people who feel such hate for current rap,” he says. “If you
like a certain genre of music, than that’s what you roll with, but at the same
time, you shouldn’t be knocking anybody else, because that’s just their own
rendition of hip-hop. It doesn’t matter if it comes off as commercial,
underground, indie or whatever; if it’s universal music, there’s always going
to be something to like: a beat, a melody, a groove. It’s all just music.”

Malicious releases For Whatever It’s Worth at a 10 p.m. show at Stonefly Brewery on
Saturday, Nov. 27, with KingHellBastard and The Acolytes. It will be the 22nd
and final installment of the group’s long-running Drunk’N Cipher showcase
series.